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A judge was forced into an embarrassingretreat after he sentenced a teenager for the wrong crime, it emergedtoday.

In what one onlooker described as a "strikingly bizarre state of affairs", Recorder David Lane QC appeared to have sat through the entire hearing without realising the charge faced by 18-year-old Daniel Donohoe.

Friends and relatives of the teenager burst into tears in the public gallery as he was handed a two year prison sentence by the judge, who appeared under the impression that he had admitted rape.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

He has been accused, along with two of his Russian friends, of holding six sailors hostage and threatening them with violence.

According to two reports (here and here) they were arrested on Monday after allegedly threatening the sailors with knives while they were ferrying them from an island. The six men claim they were taken hostage and, after being locked up in a cabin, were then forced to jump overboard.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The French minister responsible for enforcing new taxes on the rich is to be investigated for tax evasion.

The Paris chief prosecutor announced today that he has started a preliminary investigation into media allegations that Jérôme Cahuzac hid money in an undeclared bank account in Switzerland until two years ago.

If proved, the allegations could be explosively embarrassing for a Socialist French government already facing constitutional complications, and an exodus by the wealthy, as it attempts to enforce President François Hollande's plans for a 75 per cent "supertax".

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

A politician from Italy's Northern League political party has been forced to quit after being accused of chanting racist comments that led AC Milan football players to walk off the pitch last week.

Riccardo Grittini, 21, the councillor for sport in Corbetta, outside Milan, is under investigation by Varese prosecutors following the scenes last Thursday, which saw a friendly match between the Serie A superstars and fourth division side Pro Patria abandoned.

The Northern League is the populist party that hopes to jockey for power by supporting former premier Silvio Berlusconi's PDL party in next month's general elections.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Paronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

According to Suddeutsche Zeitung, SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel says he cannot see the SPD approving an aid package for Cyprus, which is expected to be agreed at eurozone-level next month; the Greens and parts of Angela Merkel coalition are also opposed, all fiercely critical of the practice by Cypriot banks to attract money from Russian oligarchs and Greek tax evaders; in an editorial, Claus Hulverscheidt writes that the Cyprus issue comes as a god-sent for the SPD, which now has its first opportunity to challenge Merkel's eurozone policies; Mario Monti says his government was forced to raise taxes because of an acute financial crisis caused by his predecessor; Silvio Berlusconi repeated his call for Germany either to accept the ECB as a bond buyer of last resort, or to quit the eurozone; Pier Luigi Bersani says he wants a big electoral pact with Monti; Italian pollster Roberto D'Alimonte says Lombardy will be the Ohio of Italy, and predicts a centre-right blocking vote in the Senate; Marco Sarti writes that Monti decided to become a politician to stop a return by Berlusconi and to quell the Five Star Movement; the latest polls put the centre-left alliance - without Monti - at close to 40%; unemployment hits a new euro-era record, with 11.8% in November, and further increases to be expected throughout 2013; youth unemployment in Italy and Spain also hit new records; Kevin O'Rourke says Europe's complacent political class underestimates the threat these numbers are posing; the European Commission's economic sentiment indicators nudges up a little, albeit at a very low overall level; the European Commission's Employment and Social Developments report sees increasing divergence among EU member states; French minister Arnaud Montebourg declares trade multilateralism to be dead; Ireland raised 2.5bn in the syndicated bond market yesterday at a yield of 3.3%; the Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem looks set to become the new Jean-Claude Juncker; yesterday saw the beginning of the age of the euro-CAC with a Dutch bond issue; Hélène Rey, meanwhile, says delay in the Greek debt exchange reduces chance that Greece returns to solvency.

This is probably the first of several records we will be reporting this year. The Wall Street Journal has the story that eurozone unemployment hit a rate of 11.8% in November, up from 11.7% in October 2012, and 10.6% in October 2011. Total youth unemployment was 24.4%, up from 24.2% a month earlier. The article says the rise in unemployment suggests that fourth quarter GDP must have contracted. The article predicts that the unemployment rate is likely to continue to rise this year as governments implement austerity measures and cut public sector jobs. The article cites Ernst & Young's forecast of a 12.5% unemployment rate by early 2014.

There was, however, some moderately good news as well. The European Commission's monthly measure of industrial confidence rose to minus 14.4 from minus 15, while its measure of services confidence rose to minus 9.8 from minus 11.9. Its overall measure of business and consumer confidence, the economic sentiment indicator, rose to 87 from 85.7. It was the second straight monthly rise in the ESI, which is now back to levels last in July and August.

Spanish and Italian youth unemployment hits new extremes

Figures released by Eurostat show Spanish youth unemployment at 57.6%, tied with Greece, against a Eurozone average of 24.4% and EU average of 23.7%, reports El Diario. In Italy, as La Stampa reports, citing data from the national statistics agency, youth unemployment in November hit a new record with 37.1%. This is the worst monthly result since January 2004 and the worst quarterly record since 1992.

European Commission's Employment and Social Developments report sees increasing divergence among EU member states

The European Commission on Tuesday released its Employment and Social Developments in Europe review for 2012 (see press release and FAQ). The report highlighted:

increasing economic divergence among EU countries during the crisis

"real gross household disposable income declined between 2009 and 2011 in two-thirds of EU countries for which data is available", led by Greece, and followed by Spain, Cyprus, Estonia and Ireland.

Long-term unemployment has increased from 3% to 4.6% of the active population between 2009 and 2012, led by Slovakia, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia where the LTU rate exceeds 7% of the active population. Spain accounts for 43% of the EU-wide increase in long-term unemployment between 2008 and 2011.

Kevin O'Rourke on the meaning of those unemployment figures

Writing in the Irish economy blog, Kevin O'Rourke says "the only thing that makes Europe's useless political class worry is the risk of imminent cardiac arrest, as proxied by bond yields and the like; [] but the cancer of unemployment will do just as much damage if allowed to progress unchecked." He says it was now of utmost importance that policymakers must now make policy proposals to reverse the trends in 2013, and to implement those policies quickly. "You have to live through times like this to really appreciate the wisdom of Keynes' famous line about the long run," he concludes.

(He is right, of course, but we see little chance of an actual change in the policies, perhaps a small moderation in the extent to which austerity is applied. It looks to us that the eurozone will remain stuck in a recession through most of 2013, heading for a very lacklustre recovery that won't feel like one.)

Arnaud Montebourg, an advocate of limited protectionism in trade and industrial policy, told journalists in Paris "Multilateralism is dead....We prefer bilateral deals ... because it's not possible to find rules that are suitable to everyone, with each requiring the right to a veto." The latest call for a broad deal is from David Cameron, who has urged the European Union and the United States to broker a free trade deal. Officials have told Reuters talks will begin in mid-2013. Montebourg said he disagreed with the method by which the European Union negotiated on behalf of its member states. The French government targets to narrow its trade deficit, which reached 60,59bn (13.8bn without energy) in the first 11 months of 2012, less than in 2011. To rebalance trade with China, Montebourg said Europe needed a currency that made its exports more attractive, closer to the US. dollar than the former German unit, the Deutsche Mark.

This hasn't been reported in France (he was talking to foreign journalists in Paris. He is generally thought to be keeping a low profile after the Florange business, where he was clearly at odds with the Prime Minister.

It might be interpreted as a shot across Cameron's bows, with respect to the proposed transatlantic deal. Cameron's ideal would be to piggyback on this deal while loosening the UK's bonds to Europe. But Montebourg's position, though popular within the PS, doesn't carry much weight within the government.

Best interpretation is that Hollande is using him to float ideas, but even that's optimistic.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

Financial market crises with the threat of a subsequent debt-deflation depression have occurred with increasing regularity in the United States from 1980 through the present. Almost reflexively, when confronted with such circumstances, US institutions and the policymakers that run them have responded in a fashion that has consistently thwarted debt-deflation-depression dynamics. It is true that these "remedies," as they succeeded, increasingly contributed to a moral hazard in US and global financial markets that culminated with the crisis that began in 2007. Nonetheless, the straightforward steps taken by established institutions enabled the United States to derail depression dynamics, while European 1930s-style austerity proved as ineffective as it was almost a century ago. Europe's, and specifically Germany's, steadfast refusal to embrace the US recipe has fostered mushrooming economic hardship on the continent. The situation is gruesome, and any serious student of economic history had to have known, given European policy commitments, that it was destined to turn out this way.

It is easy to understand why misguided policies drove initial European responses. Economic theory has frowned on Keynes. Economic successes, especially in Germany, offered up the wrong lessons, and enduring angst about inflation was a major distraction. At the outset, the wrong medicine for the wrong disease was to be expected.

hat is much harder to fathom is why such a poisonous elixir continues to be proffered amid widespread evidence that the patient is dying. Deconstructing cognitive dissonance in other spheres provides an explanation. Not surprisingly, knowing what one wants to happen at home completely informs one's claims concerning what will be good for one's neighbors. In such a construct, the last best hope for Europe is ECB President Mario Draghi. He seems to be able to speak German and yet act European.

Bank of America announced Monday that it has reached agreements with Fannie Mae to resolve home- loan repurchase claims by paying 3.6 billion U.S. dollars.

The agreements cover 300 billion dollars in outstanding principal on loans sold to Fannie Mae between 2000 and 2008, Bank of America said in a statement.

Countrywide Financial Corp., which was acquired by Bank of America in 2008, sold massive mortgage loans to Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored enterprise also known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and other mortgage buyers before the 2008 financial crisis. These buyers has been requiring compensation for loans created by Countrywide Financial, alleging the loans were based on flawed data about the properties and borrowers.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

There seem to be two kinds of objections. One is that it would be undignified. Here's how to think about that: we have a situation in which a terrorist may be about to walk into a crowded room and threaten to blow up a bomb he's holding. It turns out, however, that the Secret Service has figured out a way to disarm this maniac -- a way that for some reason will require that the Secretary of the Treasury briefly wear a clown suit.

(my bold)
Occasionally the man has a way with words. Our masters are more concerned with saving face than the most uptight samurai.

(This time I leave the inevitable Clegg comments as an exercise for the reader.)

Drones have taken centre stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan as they struggle to assert their dominance over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

China is rapidly expanding its nascent drone programme, while Japan has begun preparations to purchase an advanced model from the US. Both sides claim the drones will be used for surveillance, but experts warn the possibility of future drone skirmishes in the region's airspace is "very high".

Tensions over the islands - called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan - have ratcheted up in past weeks. Chinese surveillance planes flew near the islands four times in the second half of December, according to Chinese state media, but were chased away each time by Japanese F-15 fighter jets. Neither side has shown any signs of backing down.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The Spratly Islands now have 3G coverage, connecting the uninhabited rocks and reefs to China's telecommunications network, much to the annoyance of Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The 750 specks of land which make up the Islands do host some soldiers, and fishing vessels will no doubt appreciate the coverage, but mostly this is about territorial claims (and oil, of course) and upstaging the Vietnamese - who've had 2G coverage across parts of the region since 2005.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said nearly 2.5 million people - most of them internally displaced by the fighting - needed emergency food aid. But WFP is only able to reach 1.5 million as the situation on the ground worsens, it said.

"Food needs are growing in Syria," said Elisabeth Brys, a WFP spokeswoman. It was increasingly difficult "to reach the hardest-hit places" after almost two years of continuous fighting, upheaval and civil war, she said.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Emergency teams fought more than 130 fires across New South Wales, the country's most populous state, on Tuesday, with at least 40 burning out of control. Fires also continued to burn in Tasmania, after blazes at the weekend destroyed more than 20,000 hectares of land and dozens of properties.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Indian-controlled Kashmir, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of Pakistani troops Tuesday intruded in Indian-controlled Kashmir near Line of Control (LoC) and killed two Indian soldiers, Indian defense officials said.

The incident took place along the LoC in Mankote-Mendhar belt of frontier Poonch district, around 185 km southwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"Two troopers laid down their lives while fighting the Pakistani troops today in Mendhar sector," said Lt Col Rajesh Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army's Northern Command. "A group of Pakistani regular soldiers intruded in the Mendhar sector taking advantage of thick fog and mist in the forested area. When an alert area domination patrol spotted and engaged the intruders, the firefight between Pakistan and our troops continued for approximately half an hour after which the intruders retreated back."

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Qatar has said it would lend Egypt's government an additional $2bn and grant it an extra $500m outright, extending a lifeline as the government battles to contain a currency crisis.

"There was an initial package of $2.5 billion, of which $0.5bn was a grant and $2bn a deposit," Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani told reporters on Tuesday after meeting Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Political strife has triggered a rush to convert Egyptian pounds to dollars over the past several weeks, sending the currency to a record low against the dollar.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Australia's giant and record heatwave, which is sparking hundreds of bush fires across the land, has forced the country's meteorologists to redraw their national temperature scales - upwards.

In an unprecedented move, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has extended the temperature range on its charts from the previous cap of 50 degrees Centigrade - 122 degrees Fahrenheit - to 54 degrees C, which is more than 129 degrees in Fahrenheit terms.

At the same time, it has added two entirely new colours - deep purple and pink - to show the new extreme range on its interactive weather maps. A patch of purple, indicating 50+, is now visible on one of the temperature charts for next wee

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

I genuinely wish Stephen Lovegrove, the new top civil servant at the UK's department of energy and climate change (Decc), the very best of luck. He'll need it. The department is charged with delivering at least two huge policies: transforming the nation's electricity supply and its 14m energy-leaking homes. But its ministers are openly at war and officials were - until now at least - as likely to hinder as help their political masters.

Lovegrove's appointment may herald a steadier new era at Decc but its greatest significance is its signalling the definitive end of an era for David Cameron. The prime minister, whose husky hugging is long forgotten, is now undeniably pandering to the right wing of his party who see climate change as communist conspiracy and wind turbines as the conspirator's Trojan horses.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

A family of eleven elephants have been killed in Kenya in what officials say was the worst such incident in the past three decades.

"We have not lost as many elephants in a single incident since the early 1980s," said Patrick Omondi, head of the elephant programme at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) on Tuesday. "This is a clear signal that things are getting worse."

The corpses of the elephants, including a two-month old baby - all with their tusks hacked off - were found on Saturday in south-eastern Kenya's vast Tsavo East National Park.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Rail punctuality fell to its lowest level in two years last month, new figures show, as the company in charge of running the network admitted it would not meet its trains-on-time target until the end of the decade.

Almost 20 per cent of trains in December were at least five minutes late with only two of 15 the private rail franchises meeting the Government's 92.5 per cent punctuality target.

Overall the statistics reveal that rail punctuality has only improve fractionally since the figures were first collected eight years ago.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The Communist Party leader of Guangdong province has stepped in to help mediate a row over censorship at a Chinese newspaper, a source said, in a potentially encouraging sign for press freedoms in China.

The Guangdong Communist Party Committee reportedly said on Tuesday that Hu Chunhua, a rising political figure who took office last month, had offered a solution to the dispute that led to some staff at the Southern Weekly paper going on strike.

The dispute began late last week when reporters at the liberal newspaper accused censors of replacing a New Year letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece praising the party's achievements.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Europe's decision to extend copyright on music recordings from 50 to 70 years has just produced a curiosity: a four-disk compilation of Bob Dylan tunes that publisher Sony Music has come right out and called "The Copyright Extension Collection".

The new laws were introduced in September 2011 and became known as "Cliff's Law", as they meant Sir Cliff Richard could continue to cash in on songs he recorded in the early 1960s. US and Australian recording artists already enjoyed such a right, as copyright periods in those nations were already 70 years.

As we reported in September 2011, the 20-year extension is only available to works published before the expiration of the 50-year copyright term.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The chair of Ukip's youth division has been sacked after he revealed he was reprimanded by party bosses for supporting gay marriage.

Olly Neville, 20, chair of the Young Independence wing of the eurosceptic party, took to Twitter late on Thursday night claiming party authorities had "insulted his intelligence" on the issue of gay marriage.

He then posted two screengrabs of emails from Stephen Crowther, chairman of the UK Independence Party, condemning him for comments he made on the BBC's World At One on New Year's Eve, about gay marriage and the European elections.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

the FN has been oddly circumspect about its (one would have expected, automatic) opposition to gay marriage. It seems that there has always been a silent, invisible gay contingent, and that since the arrival of Marine Le Pen, who is alleged to be something of a magnet for gay men, there are a number of gays in the ruling clique. The FN, after much discussion, supports this weekend's demonstrations against marriage for all, but she will not be taking part.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

A known politician, who wished to remain anonymous, told the authors of the book that André Labarrère, former socialist mayor of Pau who died in 2006, had confided having taken part in a tender initiation "into pleasure between men" with he which is now honorary president of the National Front.

Labarrère is said to have shared the story with the politician in order to explain the full meaning of a message addressed to him by Jean-Marie Le Pen, which bore as a dedication: "In memory of our delicious moments spent together. "

One could imagine le Jean-Marie secretly consecrating sex between "real men", while detesting the entire gay liberation movement. But that the FN is ambiguous about gay marriage is certain.

An Indian spiritual leader has sparked outcry by claiming the student raped and murdered in Delhi was partly responsible for what happened and should have pleaded with her attackers to leave her alone - the latest in a series of controversial comments campaigners say highlight a mindset within the heartland of India that permits such assaults to take place.

Speaking to followers in Rajasthan, Asaram Bapu, a self-styled guru, reportedly said the 23-year-old was "as guilty as her rapists". He claimed: "The five or six drunken men were not the only ones guilty. The girl was also responsible... she should have called the culprits `brothers' and begged them to stop."

Yea, verily.

The comments of Mr Asaram followed remarks by male religious and political leaders that have created turmoil in the aftermath of the fatal attack. Indeed, there have been so many that one Indian newspaper, the Hindustan Times, featured a selection of them this week under the headline, "Most outrageous remarks on rape".

David Bowie celebrates his 66th birthday on 8 January by releasing a new single, Where Are We Now?, his first new music for 10 years. The track, which precedes the release in March of an album, The Next Day, was produced by Tony Visconti and recorded in New York. It harks back to Bowie's time in 1970s Berlin. The video was directed by artist Tony Oursler

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The actor Gerard Depardieu failed to show up in court to face drink-driving charges today because he was preparing to play the disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a film, his lawyer said.

The no-show means the case will turn into a full trial - guaranteeing yet another day in the spotlight for the garrulous 64-year-old actor who is caught up in a scandal over his tax status

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Lance Armstrong will break his silence about his lifetime ban from cycling and the doping charges made against him in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey next week, the television producer has announced.

The interview, to be broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network on Janauary 17, will be the first the US cyclist has conducted since receiving his ban and being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

"Armstrong will address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating, and charges of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career," the network said in a statement on Tuesday.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The traditional civil servant, with his bowler hat and rolled umbrella, might not have seen the joke.

When a bid arrived at the Department for Transport from the Folkestone-based toy firm, BigJigs, offering to take over the troubled West Coast rail franchise, he might have thought it too silly to merit a moment of his time.

But Mark Reach, private secretary to Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, instead sent back a detailed reply, querying the "crashworthiness" of BigJigs' wooden carriages and whether two sets of wheels per carriage are enough.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The Oprah Winfrey Network announced on Tuesday it will broadcast the interview on Thursday 17 January. It will be Armstrong's first formal interview since he was banned from racing for life.

"Armstrong will address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating and charges of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career," Winfrey's network said in a statement.